As government management in Israel is gradually replaced by private sector management, it is becoming apparent that the collective-oriented mission of government cannot be fulfilled by the private sector or by the non-profit organizations of civil society. This book provides an analysis of the machinery of government in Israel, highlighting the inadequacy of the private sector as an alternative and how public management will need to cope with the new challenges and pressures of the 21st century.

Providing hitherto unpublished data and analysis in English for the first time,...

The transition paradigm has traditionally viewed civil society activism as an essential condition for the establishment of democracy. The democracy promotion strategies of Western policy-makers have, therefore, been based on strengthening civil society in authoritarian settings in order to support the development of social capital -to challenge undemocratic regimes.

This book questions the validity of the link between an active associational life and democratization. It examines civil society in the Arab world in order to illustrate how authoritarian constraints structure...

This book examines the impact of European political conditionality on the process of democratization in Turkey over a twenty year period. Employing theoretical and conceptual approaches to the issue of EU conditionality, the author compares the case of Turkey to that of other European nations.

Arguing that Turkey became vulnerable to the European conditionality when it applied for membership in 1987, he shows how the political reforms demanded of Turkey were not fully carried out as the EU had not in essence accepted Turkey as an official candidate during this period. The...

In a tradition that dates back to the time of Thucydides, and the Peloponnesian War, the systematic examination of conflict and war has long been a preoccupation of political scientists seeking to resolve the enduring question: Why do wars occur? This study directly engages this question with a specific focus on explaining the conflict between Iran and Iraq, arguably the longest and one of the more costly conventional wars of the twentieth century. Explaining the systemic nature of conflict within the Middle East, and specifically between Iran and Iraq, the book illustrates how IR theory can...

This book examines some of the most pressing issues facing the Turkish political establishment, in particular the issues of political Islam, and Kurdish and Turkish nationalisms. The authors explore the rationales of the main political actors in Turkey in order to increase our understanding of the ongoing debates over the secularist character of the Turkish Republic and over Turkey's longstanding Kurdish issue.

Original contributions from respected scholars in the field of Turkish and Kurdish studies provide us with many insights into the social and political fabric of Turkey,...

Offers a survey of US-Kurdish relations and their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics. Using the Kurdish issue to explore the nature of the engagement between international powers and weaker non-state entities, this title analyses the existence of an interactive US relationship with the Kurds.

Despite having been active in the region since the mid-1990s, the role of NATO in the Middle East has attracted particular attention since the events of 11th September 2001. This book analyses the limits of NATO's role in the Middle East region and examines whether or not the Alliance is able to help in improving the fragile regional security environment through cooperative links with select Middle Eastern partners.

The author reviews the strategic importance of the region from a Western perspective and why it has become a source of instability in world politics, looks at US and...

Surveillance is always a means to an end, whether that end is influence, management or entitlement. This text examines the several layers of surveillance that control the Palestinian population in Israel and the occupied territories, showing how they operate, how well they work and how in the end their chief purpose is population control.

This book explores the conditions of state formation and survival in the Middle East. Based on Historical Sociology, it provides a model for study of the state in the Arab world and a theory to explain its survival. Examining states as a 'process', the author argues that what emerged in the Middle East in the beginning of the twentieth century are 'social fields'--where states form and deform--and not states as defined by Max Weber. He explores the constitutions of these fields--their cultural, material and political structures--and identifies three stages of state development in which...

This text examines how Iran's arms control operations have been driven by external threat as well as regional power aspirations, and have been marked by a sense of grievance.